NEWI Children’s Congress Delegates take on Washington D.C.

July 31, 2017

Evan Engel from De Pere and Samantha Wells from Kimberly were two of the 160 children at JDRF’s Children’s Congress July 24-26th in Washington D.C. They were on hand for a hearing before the Senate urging lawmakers to extend the Special Diabetes Program, which funds research for T1D. The program will run out of funds this September if lawmakers don’t act fast.

The Special Diabetes Program provides $150 million a year to advance type 1 research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and treatment and prevention programs with the aim of eventually finding a cure. The program has historically had broad bipartisan support, and lawmakers expressed optimism it would get the funds needed.